The Impact of spatiotemporal and sociocultural heimat associations in entertaining television programs on social identity, positive affect, and intergroup relations

Heimat is a German term that is often translated as home, homeland, or native region. Media offerings that present Heimat-related content relating to regional and familiar aspects of people’s lives can activate individuals’ social identity, which might influence their positive affect and self-concept. This is the first study to examine how spatiotemporal (e.g., the childhood family environment) and sociocultural (e.g., folklore or a native dialect) Heimat-related associations in television programs influence positive affect and the evaluation of both ingroups and outgroups. In our first experiment, we found that sociocultural Heimat-related associations influenced television viewers’ Heimat-related social identity and, in turn, their positive affect. In our second experiment, the salience of an individual’s Heimat-related social identity was found to positively predict their attitude toward the ingroup. In a final experiment, we found no evidence that activating a Heimat-related social identity led to a negative attitude toward an outgroup. Our findings indicate that Heimat-related media content can be psychologically beneficial, as it can have a positive effect on mood, which in turn can lead to a more positive attitude toward one’s own group, without automatically leading to negative attitudes toward outgroups.